


Laundry

by zenstrike



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Growth, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Suggestions of PTSD, Team as Family, season 1-3, silliness and angstiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 23:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: It’s laundry day. The team makes the most of their time together.





	Laundry

    It’s their third laundry day and Shiro tries not to think too hard about that—but it’s hard when Lance is sprawled on the floor, egging on Keith’s irritation. They snap what’s mostly nonsense at this point, but the twitch in Keith’s eyebrow is familiar and Shiro indulges in a momentary fantasy of squishing Keith’s face between his hands until one or both of them laughs. He leaves them to their bickering and leans his head back against the wall.

    The machines hum. Hunk, squatting in front of them, mimics a more familiar _chug chug chug_ off and on.

    Pidge peers around Shiro to watch Lance and Keith.

    “Are we bonded yet?” she asks.

    Shiro retaliates by taking her glasses, and Pidge laughs when he puts them on. It’s a shared secret turned ridiculous.

* * *

 

    It’s their ninth laundry day and Lance is asleep, slumped against Hunk. Keith has curled up in a corner, mouthing unfamiliar words as he tries to read what’s apparently the Altean equivalent of a trashy novel (Shiro promises not to tell). Pidge might have a cold: she keeps sniffing and poking at Keith’s ankles, and her eyes are bleary and her shoulders sag.

    They need a break. Instead of scratching at the sore point where his skin becomes metal, Shiro puts his hands on his hips and surveys his team.

    “Come _on_ , Keith,” Hunk groans. Lance grunts against him. “I’ll take a—uh—a manual on bayard colour efficiency or _anything_. I’m losing my mind.”

    “No,” Keith says without bite. He brings the screen closer to his face, squinting and gaping slightly, like he’s encountered a difficult problem. Or a good twist. He shuffles away from Pidge.

    “Just a little,” Hunk persists. “Just read a little. Do your best pirate voice.”

    Pidge snorts.

    Lance snores.

    “I’m not reading to you.”

    “Ugh, man. Just. Ugh.”

    The next week, Shiro brings a game that Coran recommends and the ensuing chaos in the admittedly small laundry room makes him question all his choices.

    “ _How many legs is that_?” Lance shrieks as they back away from a too-lifelike hologram.

* * *

 

    It’s their fourteenth laundry day and everyone is on edge.

    Lance and Keith have been forcibly separated. Keith sits with his arms crossed and his shoulders hunched and his scowl directed at the floor. Lance mutters occasionally, and Shiro thinks he imagines and re-imagines arguments until he’s satisfied he’s won in some version of reality.

    Pidge is angry with Shiro.

    “Katie,” he had snapped, and Pidge had closed her mouth with an audible click and stormed away.

    Half-afraid, Shiro hovers by the door and looks over at his team.

    “Sure,” Pidge grumbles partway through her pacing in front of the machines. “ _Keith_ can bring whatever he wants, _wherever_ he wants.”

    “Pidge,” Shiro says, tired.

    She throws her hands up. “Yeah! Screw me for actually wanting to get something done! How’s _enforced bonding time_ working, huh?”

    “Leave Shiro _alone_ , Pidge—“

    “Oh, shut up, Keith. I know you read trash!”

    Lance glares at the wall.

    “Guys,” Hunk ventures, his own brand of timid exhaustion. “Come on.”

    Pidge kicks one of the machines and it makes a wheezing noise in response that has them all freezing.

    Nothing really happens, so Shiro lets his head hit the door with more of a thunk than usual.

 

* * *

 

    It’s their twenty-first laundry day and truth and dare has gotten out of hand.

    “ _No_ ,” Shiro says and grabs Pidge and Keith by the back of their shirts.

 

* * *

 

 

    It’s their twenty-third laundry day and they are all a combination of homesick and hopeless.

    “We need a win,” Lance mutters next to Shiro, hugging his knees and glaring at the machines like they’re hiding Zarkon. “Like. A _big_ one.”

    Shiro agrees. Pidge is asleep against his other side, her brow furrowed. Keith sits next to Lance, picking at his pants with a too-blank look on his face.

    Hunk refused to join them.

* * *

 

    It’s their thirtieth laundry day and Keith tries to teach Lance how to do a backflip, and then is surprised—impressed—outraged when Lance manages it on his first try.

    “Please don’t break your necks,” Shiro begs. Pidge pats his elbow.

 

* * *

 

    It’s their forty-first laundry day and Lance and Hunk are doing an excellent rendition of all their favourite Britney Spears classics. Shiro laughs so hard he has to leave.

    When he comes back, with Coran and Allura in tow, Hunk has started commentating a fake soccer match with surprisingly hilarious contributions from Keith and supporting sound effects from Pidge. Lance is doubled over, and he sounds so much like a cheery teenager that Shiro is ready to call laundry day a success.

    Coran’s moustache twitches with approval. Allura is already caught up in the fake game.

* * *

 

    It’s their fiftieth laundry day. Or it’s supposed to be. But Shiro isn’t there to make them all walk their weekly walk with their bundles and their bickering and their daydreams and their nightmares.

 

* * *

 

    It’s their fifty-second laundry day. They have been in space for, maybe, a full year. Pidge has growing pains in her ankles and knees. She misses Shiro as much as Keith does, but she lashes out when he catches her wiping away tears so he keeps away. Hunk tiptoes around everyone, maybe around his own feelings and fears, and Allura—she’s a paladin now, but she wears that as heavily as any other title forced on her head. Sometimes Keith stands outside Blue and imagines her meditating within, paradoxically fierce. Sometimes he doesn’t know how long he’s there until Lance comes to get him, all unfamiliar silence and smiles, and pulls Keith away by his elbow.

    Somewhere along the way, they became a team. Without Shiro to turn to, Keith notices it more than ever. But he also notices the sometimes hesitant, sometimes natural exchanges between the new Red and Blue Paladins.

    In any case, it’s Lance who always seems to show up when Keith starts doubting.

    “What would Shiro do?” he asks with a shrug.

    Yeah, Keith thinks. What would Shiro do?

    “Alright team,” he barks after training. “Laundry day.”

    Lance shows his tired support by rolling onto his back and flashing a thumbs up.

    “You stink,” Hunk tells him, sounding pleased.

    Lance groans.

    Keith hesitates, but sets his fists on his hips and straightens his back and pretends (like he used to, when he was younger and maybe a little more scared) that he is Shiro.

    “I’m serious. Let’s go.”

    “...you all do realize the ship does most of the, ah, laundry, without your help?” Allura looks at each of them, and then shrugs. It’s a very Lance-like gesture.

    “Not the point,” Keith says lamely.

    Pidge sighs and pulls herself to her feet. She pulls Allura up next and looks at Keith. “Lance has to take a shower first.”

    “Yeah,” Lance says with a wave. “Yeah. Shower.”

    Keith worries that he’s pushing too hard, but then Lance pats his shoulder clumsily and, later, Allura wanders sheepishly into the laundry room.

    Coran gifts Keith an English-Altean dictionary and a collection of his favourite adventure novels. Keith sees Shiro and Pidge all over the dictionary. He sees, maybe, a little of what Shiro saw as Coran joins them all for a tame round of “Lance’s Spiced-Up Go Fish.”

    Keith joins his team on the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> whaaaaat i wrote something that wasn’t secretly about Lance


End file.
